Theodore's World: 'Mapping' A Danger

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November 13, 2007

'Mapping' A Danger



IBD Editorials

Homeland Security: Los Angeles police want to map potential terror hotbeds in the Muslim community, but critics are crying “religious profiling.” Actually, it’s just smart law enforcement.

And it couldn't come at a better time. The FBI is warning police in Los Angeles, as well as Chicago, that shopping malls there are possible targets of a new al-Qaida plot.

By mapping the local Muslim community, the LAPD would increase its chances of disrupting such plots. Its counterterrorism unit hopes to ID areas that might be more isolated and removed — and therefore riper targets for radicalization and even al-Qaida recruitment.

Shining a spotlight on these neighborhoods would take the terrorists and their facilitators out of the shadows where they prefer to operate.

"We just don't know enough about the communities," explains deputy LAPD chief Michael Downing, adding that the planned mapping project "has nothing to do with profiling."

But predictably, the ACLU has joined CAIR and other Muslim groups in denouncing the move.

"The mapping of Muslim communities seems premised on the faulty notion that Muslims are more likely to commit violent acts than people of other faiths," the ACLU complained.

Tolerant as this may sound, it ignores overwhelming statistical evidence to the contrary. Just since 9/11, more than 9,000 separate violent acts have been carried out in the name of Islam.

As Islamic terror expert Robert Spencer points out, we don't "see Presbyterians blowing themselves up in crowded restaurants, Buddhists flying planes into buildings and Amish waving placards crowing that they will soon dominate the world."

If the authorities ignored this reality just to appease the civil liberties crowd, they'd be committing politically correct suicide on behalf of the people they're charged with protecting. And civil rights are of no use to charred bodies.

You'd think patriotic Muslim groups would jump at the chance to cooperate in such a mapping project, which is supported by 69% of Americans, according to a CNN poll.

It's in the moderates' best interest to help police expose the extremists.

That way police can narrow their surveillance and gather more useful intelligence to protect not only society at large but also moderate Muslims who eschew violence.

The police are not the enemy here.

They know that the Muslim community is not monolithic or homogenous, especially in L.A., which is home to the second-largest Muslim population in the U.S.

They know that it contains harmless Sufi mysticists, as well as Shia and Sunni quietists, who neither support nor act out on jihad.

But police need to identify the pro-jihad Salafists — the radical fundamentalists — living among them who do pose a threat.

And the moderates can help them do it. They shouldn't let themselves be used by certain self-serving Muslim-rights groups looking for another false issue and inflammatory headline.


Wild Thing's comment........

I will never understand how a human being can say NO to doing things that make our country more secure. You all and I would do anything we could, say yes to whatever it takes to accomplish the things that needed to be done to protect all of us, and our country. It sickens me and angers me too when I hear of things like that and how certain PRO terrorists groups and that is what they are, fight those every step of the way that are wanting to do their job.


Posted by Wild Thing at November 13, 2007 12:44 AM


Comments

Some people are going through life with blinders on or rose colored glasses. They don't "see" the danger. They think Bush did 9-11 (the man wouldn't have had time to even plot anything that huge!)and that we Americans are so very bad and need to be "put in our place." But they don't realize, that means them too! I'll never understand why people think that way.
And it's not racial profiling! It's a policeman's job to make sure our cities, towns, neighborhoods are safe! Don't they realize that? They're protecting the Muslims, too!

Posted by: Lynn at November 13, 2007 04:54 AM


If I was in charge I would label it "dangerous cult profiling". I would also label the ACLU as an "anti-American communist" organization. I wish we would drop this politically correct nonsense and call crap crap and enemies enemies.

Posted by: TomR at November 13, 2007 12:32 PM


"LOS ANGELES, 12 June 2007--At its regular meeting, the Los Angeles City Council; told the Department of Homeland Security in no uncertain terms that the autonomy of the LAPD was a paramount concern to the council in a 10 to 1 vote in support of a resolution opposing "any [federal] legislative provision or amendment which would prohibit or pre-empt local 'separation' ordinances and similar local regulations such as the LAPD’s "Special Order 40"."
The resolution is a rebuke from the U.S.'s largest immigrant city to various Congressional proposals mandating that local law enforcement report to federal immigration enforcement. "
The refusal by Los Angeles to join the rest of the nation is endangering the citizens of Los Angeles, provides a sanctuary for illegals as well as Islamo-fascist terrorists thus emboldening the enemy to attack locally and elsewhere in the nation. Buy ammo!!!

Posted by: Jack at November 13, 2007 12:53 PM


It is really an unfortunate fact of life that till
we get hit again most folks will just go on their
merry way...When and if we get hit again I wouldn't want to be a Muslim here in America...I
would guess it would make what happened to the
Japanese look like a walk in the park!!!

Posted by: Tincan Sailor at November 13, 2007 05:48 PM


Tincan, we'll never know how many Americans are alive today or how many acts of sabotage were prevented because of what FDR did during WWII.

Posted by: BobF at November 13, 2007 06:28 PM


Lynn,yes and I imagine the police are very frustrated about things like this too.

Posted by: Wild Thing at November 14, 2007 12:25 AM


Tom, that is a good name for it. "dangerous cult profiling".

Posted by: Wild Thing at November 14, 2007 12:27 AM


Jack, WOW amazing!!!!!!!! Thank you and thanks for the link too.

Posted by: Wild Thing at November 14, 2007 12:28 AM


Tincan Sailor, yes I hate to say it too, but if we get attacked again there are some that might wake up then. But this is scary too, because there are also many that will just say it is because we have went to war. GRRRRRR I really don't like those people like that and wish they would just leave our country.

Posted by: Wild Thing at November 14, 2007 12:32 AM


This is religious profiling. Racial profiling is right behind. The rest of the world is watching America turn into a fascist state. You can't see it because you're on the inside.

Posted by: Nigel Greyman at November 14, 2007 09:11 PM


Hey Nigel Greyhound Meister: WE are PROUD of our 31 Red States of America - period! Keep your poopaganda for the 19 blue states of socialism, the eurabian union and the europeon union, the U.N. scumbags, and for our mother canuckers up north! - Ayatollah Assahola 2007

Posted by: darthcrUSAderworldtour07 at November 15, 2007 02:49 AM